All posts tagged privacy

Wallpaper developed in France may prevent people from snooping on your private computer network.

Could this mean that you will never again hear a cellphone go off at a concert? French researchers have developed wallpaper that would block cellular and wi-fi signals while letting through AM/FM radio waves and emergency transmissions.

Developed by engineers at the Grenoble Institute of Technology and the Centre Technique du Papier—and making use of a conductive ink containing silver particles (it’s a passive block, not a jamming system)—the wallpaper will be marketed to people concerned about outsiders’ snooping on their private networks as well as those who, for health reasons, simply want to shield themselves from as many electromagnetic waves as possible….

Alexis Madrigal reports on a talk, at Stanford, by the New York University philosopher Helen Nissenbaum, whose work helped to shape a recent Federal Trade Commission report on “Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change.”

From the post, I don’t entirely grasp the distinctiveness of Nissenbaum’s thinking (which may well be my fault). Here’s Madrigal’s shot at a summary:

Given the intellectual influence she’s had, it’s important to understand how what she’s saying is different from other privacy theorists. The standard explanation for privacy freakouts is that people get upset because they’ve “lost control” of data about themselves or there is simply too much data available. Nissenbaum argues that the real problem “is the inapproproriateness of the flow of information due to the mediation of technology.” In her scheme, there are senders and receivers of messages, who communicate different types of information with very specific expectations of how it will be used. Privacy violations occur not when too much data accumulates or people can’t direct it, but when one of the receivers or transmission principles change. The key academic term is “context-relative informational norms.” Bust a norm and people get upset. …

Would you want your Facebook friends to know what you shop for online?

A Facebook “Like” button or Twitter icon beside a product can shape purchasing decisions, two scholars of marketing have shown, even if the consumer has no intention of clicking. If the product is potentially embarrassing, consumers are less likely to buy it when prodded to think about social networks. But if it’s reputation-enhancing, they more likely to do so.

In the study, nearly 200 people, ages 16 to 45, rated their likelihood of buying items presented on a mock shopping site. Men considered Clearasil and bike shorts, while women pondered Spanx — body-shaping underwear — and fashionable perfume….

People who fill out so-called bubble forms—known to anyone who’s taken a standardized test—use distinctive pencil strokes that can later be used to identify them, Princeton University computer scientists have found.

The techniques they developed could be used to catch cheaters on tests, the researchers say, but also for less benign purposes. The researchers programmed a computer to take stock of 804 characteristics of a filled-in bubble. These include the mark’s center of mass, the variance of pencil-strokes from the bubble’s radius, the depth of shading in various regions of the bubble, plus more mathematically advanced measures.

Using 92 student surveys, the researchers then put the system to the test, After analyzing a dozen marks from each respondent, the researchers scrutinized 8 marks from one randomly selected respondent. The computer got its man (or woman) 51% of the time. And the correct answer was among the computer’s top 3 choices 75% of the time (and among the top ten 92.4% of the time) …

Biographies

Gary Rosen is the editor of Review and the former managing editor of Commentary magazine. His articles and reviews have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. He is the author of "American Compact: James Madison and the Problem of Founding" and the editor of "The Right War? The Conservative Debate on Iraq."